Winter Wonderland

Only a few days until Colin's first Christmas, and the entire family now has a head cold.  OK, not technically everyone, since the dog and cat are healthy, but all of us furless bipeds are ill.  Colin is incredibly resilient, and is doing his best to still be a happy, laughing, bouncing baby boy, but bottom line is that this cold stinks.  H and I have been attempting to battle it by gargling with salt water, and using the "neti pot" multiple times a day.  Colin can't do either of those things, but we have been giving him saline drops regularly and using the hateful aspirator twice a day.  He can't stand the sight of it, and frankly I'm horrified by what is coming out of his head (volume, color and consistency are all shocking).

Last night was Colin's first real snowstorm - we got just shy of a foot of snow, which was light in comparison.  Other areas in the northeast were hit with anywhere from 18 inches to over 2 feet.  Overnight!  And unfortunately due to Colin's miserable cold I can't take him out to play in it.  At all.  The pediatrician confirmed that it is just a bad head cold (in spite of the horrid cough), but I still can't justify taking him outside when he's like this.  Poor little guy!

I made my Christmas cookies today, and was thinking how fortunate it is that the recipes I use are very kid -friendly, involving lots of crushing of ingredients, and rolling batter into balls.  I figure that next year will still be too early, but the year after that (Christmas 2011) Colin should be old enough to start helping with the cookies.  FUN!

Currently Colin is standing (almost constantly), often holding on by only one hand.  And his teachers said that last week he was standing and completely let go of the bookshelf while he was standing.  It was only for a moment, but still... his first effort at standing solo.  SLOW DOWN KID!!  You're only 7 months old!

And right now, as I'm typing, he is trying (again) to go up the stairs.  I made the mistake (?) last week of giving him a very small assist when he crawled over to the stairs, and was shocked that with minimal assistance he climbed all the way to the landing!  He has tried again a few times, and I see improvement already.  His father is completely freaked out about this, admonishing me for teaching the kid stairs... as if he isn't going to figure it out on his own eventually.  The downside, which I do realize, is that Colin is now stair-obsessed and I have a feeling that I may agree with H in the near future.  But for now I think it is pretty incredible that my 7-month-old son can almost climb stairs.

His other current favorite activity is jumping/bouncing.  He does it until our arms wear out, or until he's panting so hard that he has to stop for 30 seconds to catch his breath.  After a brief respite, however, he's back to the tireless bouncing.  That was actually one of the reports from his teacher last week: "Colin had fun bouncing up and down with Miss Denise today.  He would have kept going but her arms got too tired!"

We'll be on the road again this Christmas, leaving for Cleveland on Tuesday (early afternoon).  Then from Cleveland we'll fly to Florida on the 27th, stay for New Year's, then back to Cleveland for another day driving back to NJ on the 2nd.  A bit of a whirlwind, but it was actually the most effective way for us to manage our trip.  Now I just hope that Colin handles the flight OK.  He's typically so good when we're out, but with this endless head cold (we're going on 3 weeks now) it is anybody's guess how he'll do.

So, if I don't post again, here's wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous new year.